String contains only a given set of characters

Question

I need to know if a given string is a valid DateTime format string because the string may represent other things. I tried DateTime.ParseExact(somedate.ToString(format), format)

Answer 1

Slightly shorted Dan Tao's version since string represents an implementation of IEnumerable<&char>

   [TestClass]
   public class UnitTest1 {
      private HashSet _legalChars = new HashSet("yYmMdDsShH".ToCharArray());

      public bool IsPossibleDateTimeFormat(string format) {
         if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(format))
            return false; // or whatever makes sense to you
         return !format.Except(_legalChars).Any();
      }

      [TestMethod]
      public void TestMethod1() {
         bool result = IsPossibleDateTimeFormat("yydD");
         result = IsPossibleDateTimeFormat("abc");
      }
   }